Roberto Martínez called it the $64m question. Given the financial value of a place in next season's Premier League, that was an underestimate of its importance, but the poser remains unanswered: why are Wigan so potent in the final weeks of a campaign after they have invariably contrived to embroil themselves in a relegation struggle?

Perhaps, their manager concluded, their status as eternal underdogs counts against them. "The perception is that we are a small club and we should be fighting to avoid relegation," Martínez said. "That affects your results. You can be magnificent in games and then just draw. The team has been at an incredible level this season." Performances have not always been mirrored by results but their annual improvement in May still renders them elegant enigmas.

While Wigan became the first visitors in a year to score three times at The Hawthorns, theirs was a fallible form of excellence. They were likely to strike but liable to concede. It has been the theme of a season when their leading defenders have spent more time on the treatment table than the pitch. With left wing-back Jean Beausejour set to miss the FA Cup final, their problems have mushroomed.

"We have had injuries, all of them in the back line, and that has affected us a little bit," Martínez said. "But overall we have been consistent enough to be fighting for other things." Their ambition is evident in their style of play. Wigan have loftier aspirations and footballers Martínez believes possess the talent to flourish at a higher level.

"Shaun Maloney should be playing for teams fighting for titles," he said after the Scot supplied James McArthur's equaliser and Callum McManaman's winner. "He's got the quality of any player playing in that position. Shaun could have been born in any other country in terms of his technical ability."

While Maloney's ability to bend a cross around a defender is more David Beckham than David Silva, he is nonetheless a continental-style flair player, roaming intelligently and elusively between the lines. If Maloney is the Scottish Silva, Martínez provides the paradox of the foreign manager who scouts north of the border. McArthur and James McCarthy, known to Wigan fans as their two "Jimmy Macs", were schooled at Hamilton Academical, Maloney, whose unrewarding spell at Aston Villa ended in 2008, was brought back to England from Celtic.

"The first time you leave your environment, you maybe try too hard," Martínez said. "Now he knows what works for him." That includes beginning his pre-season a fortnight before his team-mates. Unless Wigan, two points from safety, can clamber above the dotted line before 19 May, Maloney will surely be an early arrival at another training ground in July.

"I would never be surprised if a club with more tradition and bigger power looked at him," Martínez said. Asked to name his price, he said: "The whole stadium." The borrowed veteran Paul Scharner would command a rather lower fee but Wigan's annual game of brinkmanship is taking a toll even on a famously laidback survivor of end-of-season dramas.

"Look how many grey hairs I've got," said the Austrian. A former West Bromwich Albion player, he remains close to the pariah of The Hawthorns. Peter Odemwingie has not started for Albion since his botched attempt to join QPR in January and was jeered by the home fans when he warmed up.

"It's not an easy situation," said his friend Scharner. Wigan almost offered an escape route in the past – "We inquired last season," Martínez said – but they will not revisit their interest. "You move on to different targets," the manager said. In other respects, the aim remains the same: to beat the drop.